My Daily Bible Blog

As we have seen, Solomon has asked God for wisdom- but not only this; Solomon asks God for a special kind of wisdom- a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. v 9

In the next verses we will begin to see Solomon's wisdom come to life in a situation and with a resolution that, I'll admit, seems to be torn from prime-time television.

A Wise Ruling

Solomon jumps into the action with an odd situation. Two women come to his palace in order for the king to weigh in on their custody battle.

• Two prostitutes came to the king to settle a matter before him. v 16
  
• The women lived together in the same house and both recently had just born sons.
• During the night one of the woman's sons dies because she rolls over on him while she is sleeping. v 19
• The woman who has accidentally killed her child carefully takes the other woman's baby and for herself and places her dead child at the breast of the other woman. v 20
• When the second woman awakens, she notices that it is not her son and demands her son back. v 22
• The first woman demands that, "No! Your son is dead and mine is alive!" and the whole battle gets thrown before Solomon for his judgment. v 22

Wew! This is perhaps one of Solomon's most famous stories. (In fact, I can remember parodies of it from several cartoons when I was a kid.) One important thing I would like to point out first, is to consider the people in this situation.

• The women in this argument are two prostitutes. v 16

Historically, most prostitutes were slaves in this time period. Many times they were poor women or women who had lost their husbands and had been sold into slavery. As many of you may know as with Mary Magdalene, these women were considered the lowest of the low. Pay special attention to Solomon's ruling on this situation.

Then the King said, 'Bring me a sword.' So they brought a sword for the king. v 24

If you were these women, what would you be thinking he was going to do at this point. My money would be on the bet that he was just going to strike them both down right there for for troubling him. Let's see what he does:

Cut the living child in two and give one half to one and half to the other. v 25

Wow! Not exactly what they were ready for! (If I had not passed out at this point- I probably would have been cleaning out my ears to make sure I heard him right!)